Should the Total Annihilation Challenge forum be renamed?

[md0]

What sections of the forum are currently not indexed by search engines? For many reasons, including spam prevention, the blogs and the potential blog suggestion thread should be behind access control.

Could we also set some constraints for creating new threads for high risk areas of the forum, like the blogs section? Minimum account age for example.

[Naava]

I'll let someone else answer your questions because my skillset with computers is so high that literally a minute ago I tried to refresh a page but accidentally closed it instead.

[Linguaphile]

What sections of the forum are currently not indexed by search engines? For many reasons, including spam prevention, the blogs and the potential blog suggestion thread should be behind access control.

I like that suggestion!

Could we also set some constraints for creating new threads for high risk areas of the forum, like the blogs section? Minimum account age for example.

By account age, you mean that they should have had the account for a specific length of time, right? Like the one-week rule stated at the top of the politics forum?
At first I thought you meant the users had to be over a certain age (like over 18 or 21 or whatever) and I was wondering why you thought our blogs were going to be "high risk" for minors and thinking maybe I don't want to be part of this after all.

I'll let someone else answer your questions because my skillset with computers is so high that literally a minute ago I tried to refresh a page but accidentally closed it instead.

And then there's mine - when I saw the two posts above, my first thought was "what happened to the other posts in this thread? Now there's only these two??" and.... okay, yeah, it's the second page. I didn't remember that the surveys appear at the top of each page so the survey at the top threw me off for a moment and I thought that this was still the first (and only) page.

[Naava]

Could we also set some constraints for creating new threads for high risk areas of the forum, like the blogs section? Minimum account age for example.

By account age, you mean that they should have had the account for a specific length of time, right? Like the one-week rule stated at the top of the politics forum?
At first I thought you meant the users had to be over a certain age (like over 18 or 21 or whatever) and I was wondering why you thought our blogs were going to be "high risk" for minors and thinking maybe I don't want to be part of this after all.

Well my first idea was that md0 thinks adults aren't spammers... But it's nearly midnight here, at least I can use that as an excuse!

I'll let someone else answer your questions because my skillset with computers is so high that literally a minute ago I tried to refresh a page but accidentally closed it instead.

And then there's mine - when I saw the two posts above, my first thought was "what happened to the other posts in this thread? Now there's only these two??" and.... okay, yeah, it's the second page. I didn't remember that the surveys appear at the top of each page so the survey at the top threw me off for a moment and I thought that this was still the first (and only) page.

Me too!! I panicked for a second that all the posts are gone before I saw we're on the second page now.

[md0]

No, indeed what I meant was that the accounts shouldn't be freshly created in order to be allowed to post in certain subforums. I didn't realise we already do that for the Politics sub.

[dEhiN]

Omg, I totally forgot about this poll, thread and idea! It's a good thing I just happened to check UL after being off it since May 16!

As for the existing discussion, I love all your comments. I confess I'm a little too lazy right now to properly quote stuff, but I'll try to respond to the various points brought up with my thoughts.

Firstly, I'm glad the Politics thread already has an account age constraint. I was going to say that the functionality is completely possible with phpBB. (Actually, Linguaphile and Naava, don't feel so bad. I'm in IT and I initially thought md0 meant poster's age, which is also possible with phpBB though it's not really enforceable. It just involves a person inputting their date of birth, which someone can easily lie about). I think for this Blogs & Logs thread, we might want to switch to a minimum post count. That could weed out any spammer who decides to wait out the account age restriction and then spam that board.

On the other hand, both constraints will make it difficult for someone who discovers us, joins and right away wants to start using that board to document their language journey or something. Another possibility I can think of is to basically make the board rules (or the rules for the specific "What blogs do you follow" thread) link-less - people can post the name of a blog they follow as well as the author's name, but not a direct link to it. As for one's own blog, that can already be done in one's profile, so there's no need to post a link to it. Of course as md0 suggested and Naava already confirmed, there's nothing wrong at all with someone direclty copying the text of a post off their own off-site blog and pasting it onto a post on here.

Personally, while I like the [Blog] and [Lang] idea, it might be simpler to just suggest people incorporate [BL] and [L] somewhere in their thread title with [BL] being for blogs and [L] being for language logs. That still makes it easy to search and at the same time it allows more freedom for thread titles. As for definition, the distinction I've been working with through all this discussion has been that a language log would be specific to one's journey toward learning one or more languages. It could be a log that spans over years or for a season. Someone who is simultaneously studying multiple languages could have one log for all or one per language. The only "requirement" is that it be dedicated to one's language study/learning journey. This would then make blogs more general and basically can be about anything except one's language study. Of course, these "requirements" aren't so hard and fast. For example, if I have a log on improving my oral French skills and a daily blog on my life, and one day I share about performing an IT help desk call at work completely in French with no code switching, it would be my choice if I wanted to share that on the log, blog, or maybe even both. A similar choice would have to be made if someone wants to do a blog on books they're reading or have read, but write their posts in a target language. They could make that thread a blog or a log, depending on what they feel like. After all, while writing a whole blog or log thread in another language might mean less people reading your posts, we are a language forum.

Finally, and apologies for the lengthy post, I like what mdo suggested: (Unilang Members) Blogs and Language Logs. Should we shorten it a little to just "UniLang Blogs and Language Logs"? I did mention running a second poll for the name choosing, so why don't we say this: I'll give it until 23:59 EDT on May 27 for any name suggestions, which I'll add to the first post in this thread. (Actually, Naava, when you read this, could you please add them as well? I'm going away for a few days until Wednesday, so I don't want things to pile up). Then, on May 28, I'll create a poll and probably run it for only 15 days so it's not as long. Unless you guys want another 30 day one?

[kevin]

The forum has been configured for a while so that the first post (or the first few?) from new users require moderator approval. I had the impression that this is working well. Shouldn't this actually be enough to prevent spam in a blog section, too?

[Car]

I think so.

[Naava]

The forum has been configured for a while so that the first post (or the first few?) from new users require moderator approval. I had the impression that this is working well. Shouldn't this actually be enough to prevent spam in a blog section, too?

It would prevent you from seeing the spam, but someone would still need to go through the links to determine which ones are blogs and which ones are not, and it could potentially encourage people to sign up only to post a link and go away. I wouldn't want to turn any part of Unilang into advertisement place but of course, that's my personal opinion and if majority of you are fine with it, I'm not going to start throwing fits because of it.

On the other hand, both constraints will make it difficult for someone who discovers us, joins and right away wants to start using that board to document their language journey or something.

If there was a minimum post limit, it wouldn't have to be so high that you'd have to spend forever writing posts elsewhere before joining in the blog & log fun. But if we don't want to slow people down like that, there's still that suggestion I made a few posts ago: give a short description of the blog and why you like it instead of leaving just a link. I'd personally like to know a bit more about the blog and what it's about than just clicking through a list of links one by one.

Personally, while I like the [Blog] and [Lang] idea, it might be simpler to just suggest people incorporate [BL] and [L] somewhere in their thread title with [BL] being for blogs and [L] being for language logs. That still makes it easy to search and at the same time it allows more freedom for thread titles.

I meant the [blog] and [lang] as tags you'd put in front of the actual title. IMO you'd have even more freedom to name the thread whichever way you like when you wouldn't have to include the tag in the name?

The only "requirement" is that it be dedicated to one's language study/learning journey. This would then make blogs more general and basically can be about anything except one's language study. Of course, these "requirements" aren't so hard and fast.

Yeah, the more I think of it, the less certain I am that we could have any hard rules on what is a language log and what is a blog. I'd say we'd just agree on some guidelines* and let people choose themselves which one their thread fits better or which side they want to emphasize more (language learning or sharing your thoughts or whatever we decide the difference is).

*For example, that language log emphasizes language learning process and blogs are places to write about anything you wish, or something like that.

Finally, and apologies for the lengthy post, I like what mdo suggested: (Unilang Members) Blogs and Language Logs. Should we shorten it a little to just "UniLang Blogs and Language Logs"? I did mention running a second poll for the name choosing, so why don't we say this: I'll give it until 23:59 EDT on May 27 for any name suggestions, which I'll add to the first post in this thread. (Actually, Naava, when you read this, could you please add them as well? I'm going away for a few days until Wednesday, so I don't want things to pile up). Then, on May 28, I'll create a poll and probably run it for only 15 days so it's not as long. Unless you guys want another 30 day one?

What I saw in this thread, nobody voted after the first two weeks so 15 days should be enough. (And sure, I can update the first post while you're gone, no problem! )

My own suggestion is "Members' Blogs and Language Logs". Extremely creative, I know.

[Naava]

Since we've now made the decision to rename the forum, I've locked this topic.

The next step is to choose a new name for the forum, so please go to the New Board Name Poll to vote what the new name should be! You can also leave your comments in the name poll thread if there is anything you'd like to say about the renaming and/or the new name.